Site Recovery Manager integrates tightly with VMware vSphere, VMware vCenter Server and storage replication from leading storage vendors to make failover and recovery rapid, reliable, affordable and manageable. It enables organizations to take the risk and worry out of disaster recovery, as well as expand protection to all of their important systems and applications.

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General

Category:

Utilities

Subcategory:

Utilities - data recovery

Header

Brand:

VMware

Compatibility:

PC

Manufacturer:

VMware GSA

Packaged Quantity:

1

Product Line:

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager

Licensing

License Pricing:

Federal government

Licensing Details:

U.S. Federal only

Software

License Category:

License

License Qty:

25 virtual machines

License Type:

License

Product Reviews

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager - license is rated 3.8 out of 5 by 12.

Rated 4 out of 5 by Roger Nurse from The solution allows organizations to have a solid business continuity plan but some research needed for configurationValuable Features:Integrated replication / recovery plan ease of use and creation.Running Production out of DR siteImprovements to My Organization:This product allows organizations to have a solid BC business continuity plan in place in case of disaster. By running regularly scheduled simulated test fail overs a business can realistically plan accordingly and customize their DR strategy.Room for Improvement:Perhaps the array replication or vm guest customization features. Perhaps more features are needed to allowFor recovering VMs in situations where replication on production site has been paused for (ie: 1 week or more)Use of Solution:4 years.Deployment Issues:Deployment is fairly straight forward but it still requires a good amount of VMware experience on the architecture side to properly deploy and scale.Stability Issues:No issues. Product is fairly stable.Scalability Issues:No issues. This product scales according to licenses purchased.SRM 5.8 scales very well as compared to v5.5Customer Service:VMware customer service is great.Technical Support:VMware technical support really delivers.Previous Solutions:Previously used Netbackup and Avamar.Initial Setup:Initial setup is straight-forward but you need to really do some research on prerequisite environment config needed for this product to work as developed.Implementation Team:It was implemented in-house and on-site in customer environments.ROI:100% ROI.Other Solutions Considered:Other options evaluated were EMC Avamar and Symantec Netbackup.Other Advice:You should aspire to be really well versed on supporting this product you need to have in-house engineers that are well rounded in the networking, storage and operational aspects of vSphere/vCenter/SRM. I would recommend getting hands-on training through a VMware a Partner before implementing this product in your environment.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.VMware partner

Date published: 2017-02-28

Rated 4 out of 5 by Roger Nurse from The solution allows organizations to have a solid business continuity plan but some research needed for configurationValuable Features:Integrated replication / recovery plan ease of use and creation.Running Production out of DR siteImprovements to My Organization:This product allows organizations to have a solid BC business continuity plan in place in case of disaster. By running regularly scheduled simulated test fail overs a business can realistically plan accordingly and customize their DR strategy.Room for Improvement:Perhaps the array replication or vm guest customization features. Perhaps more features are needed to allowFor recovering VMs in situations where replication on production site has been paused for (ie: 1 week or more)Use of Solution:4 years.Deployment Issues:Deployment is fairly straight forward but it still requires a good amount of VMware experience on the architecture side to properly deploy and scale.Stability Issues:No issues. Product is fairly stable.Scalability Issues:No issues. This product scales according to licenses purchased.SRM 5.8 scales very well as compared to v5.5Customer Service:VMware customer service is great.Technical Support:VMware technical support really delivers.Previous Solutions:Previously used Netbackup and Avamar.Initial Setup:Initial setup is straight-forward but you need to really do some research on prerequisite environment config needed for this product to work as developed.Implementation Team:It was implemented in-house and on-site in customer environments.ROI:100% ROI.Other Solutions Considered:Other options evaluated were EMC Avamar and Symantec Netbackup.Other Advice:You should aspire to be really well versed on supporting this product you need to have in-house engineers that are well rounded in the networking, storage and operational aspects of vSphere/vCenter/SRM. I would recommend getting hands-on training through a VMware a Partner before implementing this product in your environment.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.VMware partner

Date published: 2015-10-24

Rated 3 out of 5 by Keith Pratola from It provides us with business continuity and disaster recovery, although it's not fully storage agnostic and there are versioning issues.Valuable Features:It’s expensive, and we also use Zerto, but good for disaster recovery testing.Improvements to My Organization:Business continuity and disaster recovery, although it’s not fully storage agnostic like Zerto, and we’ve moved away a bit because we use other services for our clients.Room for Improvement:I haven’t yet checked out latest version because we’ve been moving away from it, stuck using it for replication clients and it doesn’t work with all storage vendors. There are issues with versioning.Stability Issues:It works great, and does what it’s supposed to. Easy to do disaster revovery test without affecting production.Scalability Issues:It's easy to scale, just limited to storage vendors.Technical Support:Never needed it.Initial Setup:It’s a little complex. Just follow the instructions, but it’s not too complicated once you get connectivity, and it requires multiple vCenters, so that can make it more costly.Other Advice:Zerto may be more cost efficient, so I’m not 100% sold, and may not need it at all.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Date published: 2015-10-01

Rated 4 out of 5 by PreSalesConsultant132 from With it, we're able to perform disaster recovery for different site, but there are issues with synchronization.Improvements to My Organization:It gives us a disaster recovery solution for different sites.Room for Improvement:It looks good, but synchronization is, sometimes, a problem. Hence it should be totally dependent on storage.Use of Solution:I've used it for three years.Stability Issues:We faced issues as it is highly dependent on the platform in use.Technical Support:It's very good.Initial Setup:It was complex as it does not include a good, extensive feasibility and compatibility guide.Implementation Team:We used a vendor team who were very good.ROI:It is quite good on ROI and year on year it is about 50%.Cost and Licensing Advice:vCloud SRM is a good solution, but it is costly when compared to other solutions like Nutanix.Other Solutions Considered:We didn't evaluate other solutions.Other Advice:Choosing VMware in general, is best in terms of functionality, but it is not necessarily cost effective, as their licensing and setup costs are too hight. Maybe we will see more products for cloud and automation.Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:VMware Partners

Date published: 2015-08-25

Rated 3 out of 5 by ImranKhan from Being able to test run in a protected environment is a valuable feature while vSphere Replication needs workValuable Features:Test run in protected environmentImprovements to My Organization:More confidence over DR servicesRoom for Improvement:vSphere Replication featureUse of Solution:Four years.Deployment Issues:We had an issue with the Array SRA.Stability Issues:We had a problem connecting to the SRM plug-in.Scalability Issues:No issues encountered.Customer Service:Good.Technical Support:Average.Previous Solutions:No previous solution used.Initial Setup:Initial set-up was straightforward.Implementation Team:We used a vendor that was good.Other Advice:Do a POC whilst keeping the environmental constraints in mind.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Date published: 2015-01-27

Rated 3 out of 5 by SystemEng1354 from We're able to restore the files from SRM with minimal downtime.Valuable Features:CostImprovements to My Organization:We have had some customers that were hit with some random wear and we were able to restore the files from SRM with minimal downtime.Room for Improvement:Nothing I have run into as of yet.Use of Solution:About 8 months.Deployment Issues:It was deployed prior to my arrival with the company.Stability Issues:None encountered.Scalability Issues:None encountered.Previous Solutions:We use several solutions. We determine what is best for the customer and present them with the solutions we believe fit their needs best.Other Advice:Do an analysis of what you need. Weigh the pros and cons of each solution and use what is going to work best for you.Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:VMWare Partner

Date published: 2014-12-25

Rated 4 out of 5 by Paul Mansell from You avoid costly and time consuming DR recovery tests but vSphere needs additional scalability for smaller sitesValuable Features:Key feature for me is the ability to test recovery plans with zero impact to the production running environment, this is key for 'what-if’ type analysis and to provide confidence that the platform can be recovered with minimal intervention.Improvements to My Organization:Organisations that have implemented SRM in my experience have confidence that their mission critical systems will be recovered within the given SLA in the event of a planned or unplanned availability event. This avoids costly and time consuming DR recovery tests which are also often unrepresentative of the real scenario.Room for Improvement:Smaller sites or sites with mixed storage platforms rely on vSphere replication for DR purposes so additional scalability in this tool would benefit from this.Use of Solution:I have designed and implemented 3 solutions with this product over the last 3 years.Deployment Issues:No issuesStability Issues:More around vSphere replication than SRMScalability Issues:No issues encountered.Technical Support:VMware Tech Support is excellent.Previous Solutions:For VMware environments there is no other option for integrated/automated DR other than 'roll your own.'Initial Setup:SRM setup is straight forward, SRA (storage integration) can be more complex depending on the array in question.Implementation Team:I was working for the vendor.Other Solutions Considered:Consider your storage design and replication policy first and as always make sure you review VMware documentation and HCL for compatibility.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Date published: 2014-12-23

Rated 4 out of 5 by SysEng5035 from Easily create test environments with the SRM test functionality but auto guest customizations through a GUI is missingValuable Features:The automatic activation of the storage volumes and bringing up all VM’s. The recovery plans and resource mapping are good features.With the resource mapping we can use different networks to bring up our VM’sImprovements to My Organization:We can easily create a test environment with the SRM testing functionality, also in combination with EMC recoverpoint we can start up a virtual machine to a given point in time.Room for Improvement:Automatic guest customizations through a GUI is a missing feature. Also the new version of SRM is web-only and is not that stable as the old client version.We had couple of times that the web interface crashed and needed to restart the services.Use of Solution:7 years.Deployment Issues:No issues encountered.Stability Issues:No, but the new web client is sometime ‘buggy.'Scalability Issues:No issues encountered.Customer Service:We needed to use customer service a couple of times while upgrading versions but all went fine.Technical Support:8/10Previous Solutions:No previous solution used.Initial Setup:It wasn't complex.Implementation Team:We used a vendor team and their expertise was good.ROI:This product makes it easy for us to have a managed DR. Also the point in time functionality to bring up vm’s is a cost-saving method for us during the upgrade / testing period.Other Solutions Considered:No other options evaluated.Other Advice:Read and follow the admin guide, otherwise when you miss a step you can search long time. Also use the correct storage adapter of your storage vendor.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.